


like a vulture

by telekinesiskid



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Introspection, POV Second Person, References to Drugs, References to self-harm, references to violence, this is the closest thing I'll ever do to a drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 01:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7993429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinesiskid/pseuds/telekinesiskid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You think you were lucky you were introduced into a pack that thrived off mysteries and folklore and quests for dead kings, because you know now you could have easily been tempted into a group of troubled and violent youths if only they’d shown you a little compassion.</p><p>(or, Adam reflects on how he could've wound up as one of Kavinsky's dogs)</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a vulture

**Author's Note:**

> I was diggin' thru some of my old trc fic and I found this half-decent short story that I just... never got around to publishing I guess ?? so I fixed it up a bit and here we are. sometimes you sink a little too much effort into something to just bench it.
> 
> fyi: apparently 'homemade tattoos' are actually real and in fact NOT a common euphemism for self-harm/cutting, but it's used as one here (because our school did this; my school's awkward handling of sensitive topics is the inspo here).
> 
> s/o to [kiiouex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) for beta'ing, even though this is old and clearly isn't my best work l m a o

You still remember the talk. You and just about every other boy in the classroom’s eyes glazed over as the teacher spoke to one or two boys in particular about self-harm. Only it wasn’t called self-harm back then. ‘Homemade tattoos’ was a far more palatable issue for everyone to address.

Back then, nobody was talking to you. You were all fifteen, some of you sixteen, and it was a much more unfriendly, volatile environment. You all thought you knew what true suffering was and that everyone else had yet to see it. But you don’t think many boys understood the point of ‘homemade tattoos’, outside of the nihilistic chic of it. Everyone there had the money to be healthy, polished, well-dressed, yet they wanted to look gaunt, pale, torn-up – haunted by demons they didn’t even know could be so ugly. Bruises under your eyes, grime under your nails, scars on your arm – most posh boys got all that from a forty-five dollar bottle they could wipe off at the end of each day; you got all that from life. You didn’t have the choice to take it off or to put it on at all. You’re seventeen now, and you know that pain is subjective and suffering isn’t a contest, but resentment still simmers in your blood whenever you hear another boy decry how godawful his life is because his daddy couldn’t afford to take the family to South Africa this year.

There was always one other boy, you thought, who wore that make-up a little thinner and a lot prouder than everyone else. Joseph Kavinsky joked and joked and joked how his mother was addicted to crack and his father had tried to kill him, but, after a certain point, you had to wonder how much of it was really a joke and how much of it was a cry for help. Maybe he beat just about everyone over the head with blunt truths so no one could strike him first. Maybe it was survival. Maybe it was just another feature of his all-or-nothing lifestyle.

‘Homemade tattoos’ had never quite applied to Kavinsky, as far as you could tell. He did harm himself, but not in such a blatant way; he snorted, he drank, he shot up, and he inhaled just about any fumes that were man-made. He made self-harm pretty with body modification; he got piercings like mercury rain down his face, and he got tattoos – real ones – that were sometimes as corny and melodramatic as a flaming skull hood ornament and rarely as poignant as an ouroboros of all-out self-consumptive hatred.

You’re not like Kavinsky. And you don’t do tattoos, homemade or otherwise. You’ve suffered in silence for so long now you’ve just adapted it as a sort of Adam Parrish trademark you’re masochistically proud of. You hold so much pain inside, but that’s exactly where it stays. It never overflows or boils out because your well is bottomless.

People talk to you now, so it doesn’t matter. But sometimes you wonder what would’ve happened to you if Gansey hadn’t found you first, hadn’t picked you up and fit you in and made you a staple of his court. You wonder if you would’ve eventually been claimed by Kavinsky. You’ve seen how their latest comrade – Swan – was inducted into the pack. For months, nobody would touch Swan. He’d come in far too late into the year and, when provoked, he threw punches that made flesh swell and bones snap. He didn’t strike you as a boy who was troubled in the way other Aglionby boys thought they were troubled; low grades, easy target, several suspensions, always teetering on the verge of expulsion, always stinking like whiskey and weed. It didn’t take long for Kavinsky to realise that he’d been on the wrong side of that fight, and soon he stopped throwing punches _at_ Swan and started punching for him.

It never fails to astound you how close they all are. You don’t remember the way you were before you met Gansey, but people tell you that you were sullen, avoidant and defensive, unapproachable and raw. You must’ve been lonely, tired. Like Swan, you must’ve redirected your emotion outwards, pushing it out, like a barrier. Your pre-emptive hostility isolated you, put you in a lonesome dome, but at least you were safe.

In a pack, it’s different. You can trust and be trusted. You can talk and be talked to. You can like and be liked back. You think you were lucky that you were introduced into a pack that thrived off mysteries and folklore and quests for dead Welsh kings, because you know now you could have been tempted into even a group of troubled and violent youths if only they’d shown you a little compassion. If Gansey – _my prince,_ you think dryly – had never come, Kavinsky might’ve taken you for himself. Like a vulture, he would’ve swooped down on your remains after everyone else had picked you apart. An opportunist who feeds the hungry child whose parents never arrived.

For that reason alone, Kavinsky’s always intrigued you. You wonder what kind of addition you would’ve made to Kavinsky’s pack. You wonder if he would’ve made you feel as loved as Gansey does, in his own sick way. You wonder if you’d still be on the path you’re on now or if Kavinsky would’ve grabbed the wheel and careened you into a ditch with the rest of them. You don’t know where you’d be today with Kavinsky as your saviour.

Part of you hopes you’d be the kind of person Gansey would shake his head at.


End file.
